National Youth Orchestra - Full of Energy and Joy
The Illuminate Tour, National Youth Orchestra (NYO), Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry.
5 January 2025 (One concert only).
Review by Ann Cee.
Who, other than the joyful Jaime Martin (conductor), could inspire such a huge orchestra of young people to evoke such a wonderfully precise, charismatic and generous sound in Butterworth Hall last Sunday (5 January).
As the National Youth Orchestra’s ‘Illuminate Tour’ takes in London, Coventry and Nottingham over three days, I was delighted to be able to drop in to Warwick Arts Centre to check out the future of Britain’s orchestral scene, and I must say I was thrilled by what I heard and saw.
NYO on their recent tour of Illuminate. Photo courtesy of NYO.
Some lovely ‘choreography’ and performative moments created a lively, fun and original feel to the afternoon which started with an orchestral classic that I will always adore. Ravel’s ‘Bolero’ entered with confidence, style and delicacy before building through its repeated refrains to create ominous emotional intensity before its final release. It was fabulous to see such a superb array of woodwind and brass take ‘centre’ stage so elegantly.
All of the soloists had beautiful, haunting precision as they offered, echoed and dueted the melody, but a special mention must be made of the French horn solo by Claire Marsden (Joint Principal). Claire’s velvety notes swirled through the concert hall and smoothed every wrinkle from every brow with silken sound waves, it was out of this world.
NYO - an orchestra of 160 teenage musicians at Warwick Arts Centre. Photo courtesy of NYO.
From the 1920s with Ravel, we jumped almost one hundred years into 2021 with Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s ‘Catamorphosis’. This piece of seven movements is no easy ride for any orchestra but Martin and the NYO effortlessly depicted the atmosphere of a dark, Scandi, murder mystery in the land of fire and ice.
I could almost feel the glaciers cracking and the lava fields shifting beneath my feet as the mountains spat out ash and flames, and the waterfalls rained down on splitting rocks. It’s a modern piece that gives space for experimentation with sound without sacrificing musicality and musicianship. I enjoyed the careful balance between the more comforting and reflective aspects which contrasted with the more eery and foreboding parts. At its heart, this piece captured the elemental edgy nature of Iceland.
Huge appreciation should be offered to the entire wall of percussionists who expertly evoked the quiet, scratchy threat and the loud, burning hell that crashes through earth’s surface at regular intervals in Iceland.
NYO with Conductor Jaime Martin. Photo courtesy of NYO.
The concert concluded by returning us to the early twentieth century (1916) with Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 4, The Inextinguishable. Nielsen was determined to use his music to push light out into the world despite the raging of the First World War and what he described as “senseless hate”. Martin and the NYO gave all four movements a terrific energy and verve as they passed the tune around the sections of the orchestra. All were wonderful, but of particular note were the fabulous oboists and flutists who sang out beautifully.
After such a thrilling couple of hours, I genuinely feel the future of Britain’s orchestras looks very shiny and bright.
For more information and news of the NYO’s performances around the UK, please visit: https://www.nyo.org.uk/news/the-national-youth-orchestra
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